Charities we support

2016-17 Charity

TOLFA stands for Tree of Life for Animals and is the culmination of a lifetime’s work and dedication from British RVN Rachel Wright. Started in 2005, TOLFA has grown into a busy animal hospital and shelter based in a rural location in Rajasthan, India. Among the stunning desert landscape, temples and palaces, TOLFA is a beacon of hope for the state’s thousands of street animals.

TOLFA provides a free animal rescue service for unowned animals – mostly dogs, cats and cows (of which there are many that roam freely). We have 2 ambulances that cover a radius of 35km and answer between 20 and 30 calls for help every day. In 2015 we admitted 4,293 animals through the Rescue & Care project for treatment and provided on-the-spot care for hundreds more.

TOLFA also provides free or heavily subsidised veterinary care to the working animals of the rural poor. We run daily goat clinics at our in-house dispensary as well as mobile services to the people and their animals of more remote, out-lying villages. The mobile clinic began in July 2015 and treated over 18,000 animals in its first year. These animals previously had extremely limited access to veterinary services.

Education has always been a very important aspect of TOLFA’s work and we have now reached over 4,000 children with our teachings on animal welfare and rabies prevention.

There are more deaths from rabies in India than any other country and TOLFA’s goal is to eradicate this terrible disease from the area. We run a sterilisation and rabies vaccination project for street dogs and have so far spay/neutered more than 18,500 dogs and vaccinated over 22,000.

All of this work is ongoing and vital, not only to the animals, but the people of our community. If this is what one tree can do, then imagine a whole forest.

We are very pleased to have made TOLFA our charity for the 2016- 17 year. The founder of TOLFA Rachel Wright used to locum through our agency many years ago for a few months a year to fund going back out to India to develop the charity in its early stages. We have since had a number of nurses the have worked through our agency that have worked with them and we felt that it was a great idea to raise awareness and money for the charity as it is doing such a wonderful job of caring for animals there. We hope you do too...

Do take the time to read the full article of the charity and please do donate whatever you can via the donate page listed below.

2015-16 Charity

It is rewarding to work on community projects and give back and help with no economic return. We encourage our staff to get involved in supporting community projects that they are interested in and that help the local community. We care about animals and are all either pet or livestock owners- we enjoy the benefits that animals bring and keep between us a range of farm and companion animals . We have been involved in many community projects over the years. Currently we support the “All creatures great and small” sanctuary. As well as donating financially every month we donate dog leads, bedding, food for the animals a few times a year.

2015-16 Charity

We also support the donkey sanctuary and are part of their adoption scheme. For the last few years we have adopted Teddy and this year we have now adopted Moses. He is retired now at the sanctuary in Sidmouth and is a easy going gentle donkey. He is very social and his best friend is Oscar as you can see from the photo he is a lovely looking chap.

We have also supported non animal community projects such as React now a local Police initiative to educate children on the dangers of violence and drugs. We are also keen to hear from our members of staff in the office about what schemes they would like to support. We feel this then allows them to help a charity of their choice and get involved with working on something that is not direct recruitment. The members of staff that show they want to be involved in a project show passion for supporting it and enjoy doing it. Members of staff have also carried out fundraising activities for example cutting hair off for the "Little princess trust" and swimming the channel challenge for the charity "Aspire". One of our directors is a volunteer at the local pony club committee and teaches the children mounted games.